About Us
The principals of Insightful Alliance are leading practitioners in their field. As editors and writers for QRCA’s flagship market research magazine, “Views”, they share their knowledge with others in the industry. They also advise the developers of some of the leading commercial online market research platforms on how to improve functionality and performance. And they each bring a unique point of view as well.
The partners of Insightful Alliance also are leaders in their field, and they extend and complete the research expertise of Insightful Alliance.
Michael Mercier, Principal, Cincinnati
Michael has knowledge and experience in the realms of digital applications, publishing, green marketing, advertising, financial services, healthcare/medical and education. In addition to market research, he has held positions in product management, marketing management, sales and management consulting.
Michael is the Online Qualitative Editor of "Views", the market research magazine. He worked at PCWEEK Magazine, and oversaw the production of digital applications and websites as a publisher in the college textbook industry. He also worked for an education software company, and once produced and hosted an Internet talk radio show about technology and business.
Michael is the Curriculum Director of The Green Dream Foundation, a non-profit group that provides high school and college students with seminars, field trips, internship opportunities and scholarships related to environmental sustainability. He also is on the Speakers Committee of the Digital Hub non-Conference, a digital marketing and advertising conference held annually in Cincinnati.
Michael holds a B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College, an M.B.A. in Marketing from The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and an M.S. in M.I.S. from The University of Cincinnati. He is a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association.
He enjoys running, coffee, cooking, and playing with his son Nicholas and daughter Isabelle.
Amy Savin, Principal, Chicago
Amy Savin has spent over twenty years creating successful marketing strategies and plans. Amy helped companies like Kraft and Avon Products to create and re-create brands, new products and new lines of business. After leaving Kraft, Amy was the Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc. where worked extensively with the electronic trading system. She also honed her strategy skills working in consulting at McKinsey & Co.
Amy has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a B.A. from Yale College, is a RIVA certified Qualitative Research Consultant and has advanced training in online qualitative techniques. Her online work includes discussion boards, ethnographic immersions, social media and focus groups. She has authored several articles about leading edge online market research techniques in magazines including QRCA Views and Quirks.
These days when Amy is not skiing, hiking or reading food magazines she is working as a marketing strategist and qualitative research consultant.
Dennis Devlin, Partner, Cincinnati
Dennis Devlin is a consumer strategist and learning advocate. His founding and leadership of Consumer Clarity utilizes this dual orientation of an unyielding focus on understanding consumers and advocating continuous learning.Dennis is pleased to be associated with Insightful Alliance, which provides him an opportunity to leverage his extensive quantitative research skills and capabilities that are focused on digital and mobile methodologies.
His 25-year professional research career has been committed to deeply understanding what drives consumer behavior, discovering and sharing clear consumer insights and identifying clear marketing strategy that drives clear business results. He accomplishes this objective through consulting with businesses on accelerating consumer understanding, advancing clear strategic decision-making, and leading and facilitating sessions as well as coaching and mentoring in areas of marketing research and consumer insights.
Dennis is passionate about helping businesses succeed through custom marketing research. He possesses broad and deep research industry experience, with significant experience supporting the research needs of companies of all sizes in a variety of industries including publishing, consumer packaged goods, financial services, pharma and health care - to name just a few.
He serves as the Group Leader of the Market Research Shared Interest Group of the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Marketing Association. Additionally, Dennis is an adjunct faculty instructor teaching market research at the University of Cincinnati.
Monica Zinchiak, Partner, San Diego
Monica Zinchiak is the owner and lead analyst with Z. Research Services. Monica began her professional consulting career in 1995 and has 19 years professional market research, agency, and consulting experience.Monica specializes in customer satisfaction, ad/communication testing, and marketplace evaluation. She has developed a diversified portfolio that includes clients such as Dunkin' Donuts, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Otis Spunkmeyer, Clorox, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson, Yahoo!, Hewlett Packard, Citibank and AT&T. Monica has assisted these companies in understanding their target customers by conducting focus group research, individual depth interviewing, telephone interviews, online focus groups, and in-context ethnographic research.
The year 1995 brought Monica many interactive media research studies and she has concentrated her businesses focus in the area of online qualitative research since 1996. Her forte is creating online methods and projectives to uncover true attitudes and desires.
Monica is an active member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA), and serves as Editor In Chief of QRCA VIEWS, the industry's leading educational journal dedicated to the practice of qualitative research. Monica holds a BS in Market Research from California State University, and her graduate studies concentrated in the area of psychology and social behavior.
Jesse Dunbar, Partner, Cincinnati
Jesse's career began in advertising and television before taking a turn towards public service. As a consultant working in the realms of politics, non-profits and business ventures that strive to be a solid partner in the community, Jesse has furthered local and state interests including the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Cincinnati Museum Center, MR/DD, public school districts, public transportation, public housing, organized labor, safety services and various other community amenities and resources. He also served as a Director at Stepping Stones Center in Indian Hill from 2004 through 2006, a United Way affiliated non-profit working with individuals with disabilities.Jesse grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from the Summit Country Day School. He attended Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he was a two-sport athlete, before graduating with Honors from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. Jesse and his son, Jackson, live on their family farm in New Richmond.
Deborah J. Mayhew, Partner, Boston
Dr. Mayhew is Owner and Principal Consultant of Deborah J. Mayhew & Associates, a consulting firm offering a wide variety usability and interface design services. She is an internationally recognized consultant, teacher and author.Dr. Mayhew has consulted to companies in many diverse industries on the design of products based on a wide range of technology platforms including mainframe computers with “dumb terminals”, GUIs, medical technology, manufacturing equipment, and Web sites and applications. Her clients have included GE Medical, IBM, AT&T, John Hancock Insurance Co., GE, Hewlett-Packard, Ford Motor Co., GTE, American Express, Apple, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, NASA, the National Cancer Institute, the IRS, The New York City Police Department, Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), Cisco Systems, ITT Hartford, and The New England Insurance Company.
Dr. Mayhew is a frequent instructor in conference tutorial programs, and has taught courses in many large organizations. She has authored or co-authored four books on usability engineering, and has contributed chapters to many other books.
Dr. Mayhew holds a B.A. in Psychology from Brown University, an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Denver, and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Tufts University.
Todd Follansbee, Partner, Boston
Mr. Follansbee focuses on website usability and persuasive architecture. His approach combines usability, psychology and a thorough understanding of web marketing strategies and the web sales experience to help companies build a clear and compelling online presence, improve conversion rates, and to insure the highest possible web sales.He consults as a "virtual partner" for a variety of web marketing firms. His innovative work with psychographic user profiling and web marketing led him to speaking on TV and in seminars on converting web site visitors into customers. He has worked or consulted with a variety of companies including SNET and The Day newspaper, (winner of NE Newspaper of the Year site). His marketing work in AdWord campaigns, blogs, an Internet audio talk show, and guerrilla marketing helped a small player in the crowded developer training business win the prestigious Windows Developer magazine award for "Best Training Company in the U.S.".
Mr. Follansbee is currently the usability and conversion columnist for the nationally known eNewsletter "Web Marketing Today", which reaches over 100,000 web marketing professionals every week. His work also appears on many other web sites and he speaks regularly at professional usability meetings.
Mr. Follansbee holds a B.A. in Economics from Franklin & Marshall University.
Elisa Hughes, Administrative Support, Minneapolis
Elisa is accomplished in a varied range of skill sets. She is energetic, accurate and experienced at project execution. For twenty years Elisa has been a valuable team player in areas of administration, research, product development and general management.After earning her BA at Scripps College, Elisa worked as an Administrative Assistant at Kraft Foods. She gained great experience in Packaging, Consumer Promotions and Market Research during this time. Elisa left Kraft to join Hughes Design, Inc., a Visual Merchandising company. She also began her own company, Flying Fingers, where she aids in real-time typing, presentation and report formatting, spreadsheet development and secondary research using a wide variety of databases. Elisa enjoys learning and is accomplished at numerous software applications to aid in achieving the task of the day. She thrives on working with others to produce an exceptional end-product.
In her free time, Elisa enjoys reading, hiking, canoeing and relaxing with her husband and three beautiful cats.